In 1942, the CORE association started recruiting Freedom Riders to integrate the bus rides along the south. No one knew who the CORE was or what it meant, and the whites wanted to find out. CORE means Congress Of Racial Equality. In the mid 1960s the core started working with other civil rights groups. The CORE sent many Freedom Riders to go to the south to fight against segregation. The CORE is what helped the Freedom Riders to stay calm and still make peace even though they were treated horribly.
In 1961,the Freedom Riders set out for the Deep South to fight against segregation. When the Freedom Riders arrived they were welcomed with hatred and violence. Many of the whites blocked off the greyhound bus and said “Kill them let them burn“ “Burn them alive” The whites threw brick at the bus, they threw bombs, they smashed windows with pipes, and they bus eventually exploded because of the gas tank explosion.
In 1961,A guy named Jim Peck, a long time CORE activist, required 53 stitches close to wounds, he got those wounds from the angry mob that beat him to death. During the
Freedom Rides Terrorists bombed 60 black homes and churches. Another bad thing that the white police officers did to the blacks, and the black children that they would get fire hoses and spray the blacks with very powerful water that is getting sprayed at them,they would also bring their vicious police dogs to bite them, most blacks got injured from the dogs very powerful bite.
The Freedom Riders went from Washington D.C. to New Orleans. On their way there they went through a lot of hard times, many of the African-Americans and whites were beaten, jailed, and there buses burned. As they went through some towns most of the people didn’t really care that the Freedom Riders were going through, but on the other hand some other towns got together and formed a mob to try and kill all the Freedom Riders. When the Freedom Riders went through Missouri and Alabama the KKK were all waiting for them. As the Freedom Riders arrived in Missouri and Alabama the Ku Klux Klan went onto the buses and tortured the riders. The KKK would not get off the bus till the next stop, and at the next stop they would set the buses on fire and throw firebombs.
On May 4, 1961, a group of 13 African-American and white civil rights activists launched the Freedom Rides. During 1947, African-American and white bus rides tested the 1946 U.S. Supreme Court that segregated bus seating was unconstitutional. Black riders traveled to the American South, where segregation continued to occur. They attempted to use whites only restrooms, lunch counters and waiting rooms. The original group of 13 Freedom Riders, seven African-American and six whites left Washington D.C. on a Greyhound bus on May 4, 1961. Their plan was to reach New Orleans on May 17 to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision, which ruled that segregation of the nation’s public schools was unconstitutional.